Boys basketball: Exeter boys fare well at Queen City Invitational

MANCHESTER — The Exeter High School boys basketball team was looking for vengeance. Instead, it left the Queen City Invitational with some vindication.

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By RYAN O'LEARY

seacoastonline.com

By RYAN O'LEARY

Posted Dec. 31, 2013 at 2:00 AM

By RYAN O'LEARY
Posted Dec. 31, 2013 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

MANCHESTER — The Exeter High School boys basketball team was looking for vengeance. Instead, it left the Queen City Invitational with some vindication.

Facing some of the top teams and players in the state over the weekend, the Blue Hawks fit in just fine.

They reached the Queen City championship game for the second straight year and lost to Manchester Central, 66-53, on Saturday night at Manchester Memorial High School. They won a pair of tight tournament games with Bedford and Merrimack but couldn't avenge last year's 68-48 loss to Memorial in the title game.

Still, the Blue Hawks hung with the big boys after dispatching Manchester West and Dover by a combined 83 points in Division I play earlier this month.

"It's definitely good for us," Exeter senior Max Medley said of the experience. "We really saw what a tough game is going to be like. We're definitely going have a bunch of those down the road. I think we handled it really well."

Central, which Exeter coach Jeff Holmes called a consensus top team in the league, was just too good down the stretch behind star guard Brett Hanson on Saturday. He scored 21 points, and Central iced the game late after Exeter pulled to within six with 5 minutes to play.

Exeter was coming off a 61-53 win over Merrimack that included a rally from eight points down in the fourth quarter. A day later, there was no such magic.

"We hung with them for a while, then we kind of fell apart," Holmes said. "We just didn't shoot a high enough percentage against a team like that. But we competed with them."

The Hawks saw two of the state's best in Hanson, who averaged 35 points per game in the tournament, and Merrimack's Eric Gendron, who they held to 16 points on Saturday night.

Exeter countered with its spread-the-wealth style, led by senior captains Zack Holler and Max Medley. Holler scored 17 points in the championship game and Medley averaged 10 points per game in the tournament overall.

The Hawks encountered some valuable situations over the three days. They held off Bedford, 52-46, in a game they led 16-9 early and had to salt away late. Trailing Merrimack 50-42 in the fourth quarter a day later, they dialed up their full-court pressure and closed the final 6:03 of regulation on a 19-3 surge.

"When we get in the press it's just way more exciting, because we get to attack them," Medley said. "Obviously, we got turnovers. Instead of us being scared, it kind of scared them off a little bit."

Exeter erased its eight-point deficit in less than two minutes in the Merrimack game. Tied 52-52, the teams traded points until the Hawks scored 11 unanswered to suddenly assume control.

"We hadn't really played a team of that caliber yet," Holler said. "So facing that, we got knocked down but we just got up and kept focusing. We fought through it."

In Sunday's championship, Exeter was within 31-27 at halftime before slipping behind 48-38 through three quarters. It got as close as five points early in the fourth quarter but couldn't get over the hump; Central captured the tournament title for the 24th time.

The Hawks return to Division I play on Friday, when they host league-power Trinity in the start of a key stretch of four games in eight days. They also travel to Bishop Guertin and host a rematch with Central (Jan. 10) during that span.

"It was a good experience for us," Holmes said of the Queen City Invite, "to play really competitive, meaningful games."